‘House Of The Dragon’ Star Eve Best & ‘The Penguin’s Carmen Ejogo Leading Nicôle Lecky’s BBC Thriller

EXCLUSIVE: Double-BAFTA winning Mood creator Nicôle Lecky has cast her BBC thriller series, which has been given the title Wild Cherry.

House of the Dragon star Eve Best and The Penguin’s Carmen Ejogo are leading Wild Cherry, which has rolled cameras in south England after being teased at last year’s Edinburgh TV Festival. Lecky is creator, star and producer.

Ejogo is Lorna, a self-made, successful Black businesswoman from South London who has worked hard to get to where she is. Best plays her closest friend Juliet, a woman born into the privileged gated community they both call home. The safe haven is a place where bad things never happen until their kids are implicated in a shocking scandal at their exclusive private school and Juliet and Lorna are forced to take sides. The show is described as a “provocative and deliciously honest look at mother/daughter relationships in a haze of social media, hidden apps and peer pressure.”

Best and Ejogo are joined by Amelia May, Imogen Faires (Goldie’s Oldies, Marcella) and Sophie Winkleman (Peep Show, Sanditon). Daniel Lapaine (Catastrophe), Hayat Kamille (Vikings: Valhalla), Isabelle Allen (Les Misérables), James Murray (The Crown), Jason York (Mood), Katrina Cas (The Wolf of Wall Street), Nathaniel Martello-White (The Winter King), Sonita Henry (Black Cake), Tara Webb (Phoenix Rise), Will Bagnall (A Thousand Blows) and Hugh Quarshie (Holby City) round out cast.

The show comes two years after Mood, Lecky’s explosive, critically-acclaimed musical drama series that won BAFTAs for mini-series and original music, which was based on her one-woman play Superhoe. She is a huge proponent of the BBC and has criticized the streamers for failing to understand the nuances behind Mood when she was pitching the show.

Best plays Princess Rhaenys Targaryen in HBO smash House of the Dragon and has been in Nurse Jackie, The Honourable Woman and The King’s Speech, along with playing Kate Middleton’s mum in The Crown. Ejorgo, meanwhile, plays Oz in another HBO hit The Penguin, with past credits including Kidnapped, True Detective and Your Honor.

Lecky said: “Getting to work with Carmen and Eve is such a dream, and they have brought Wild Cherry to life in the most special way. Wild Cherry has a brilliant ensemble cast of characters and I cannot wait for audiences to meet our Richford Lake residents.” 

Wild Cherry is produced by BBC Studios-owned Firebird Pictures. It is written and created by Lecky with Toby MacDonald (Extraordinary, Fifteen-Love) directing. The executive producers are Elizabeth Kilgarriff and Craig Holleworth for Firebird Pictures, Lisa Walters, Lecky, Macdonald and Lucy Richer for the BBC. The producer is Ado Yoshizaki Cassuto. The series is currently filming in Surrey. BBC Studios is distributing the series internationally.